The 1950 hotel built next to the presidential palace, now being repurposed after seven decades of service.
Landmark buildingThe Hotel Novo Mundo stands at Praia do Flamengo 20, at the northern end of the waterfront, directly behind the gardens of the Palácio do Catete. For seventy years it was one of Rio's most traditional hotels — twelve floors with bay views toward the Sugarloaf, a lobby that doubled as a meeting point for the political class, and banquet rooms that hosted half a century of public life.
The hotel closed in March 2019, and plans were subsequently announced to convert the building into student housing — a sign of how this stretch of Flamengo, dense with universities and transit, keeps finding new uses for its big mid-century buildings.
Address: Praia do Flamengo 20, Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro
The project dates to 1947, commissioned during the Dutra presidency with a deadline attached: the government wanted a first-class hotel near the Palácio do Catete in time for the 1950 World Cup. It opened in the Cup year with only eight floors in service; the final four were completed afterward.
Because the presidential palace was next door until the capital moved to Brasília in 1960, the Novo Mundo became the unofficial annex of Brazilian politics — ministers, congressmen and visiting delegations filled its restaurant for decades. It closed in 2019 after 69 years of continuous operation.
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Browse all properties →Art Deco out front, a hidden Burle Marx garden behind.
The 'Dakota Carioca' — Praia do Flamengo's heritage landmark.
A 1947 Art Deco pair on the Flamengo waterfront by the same architect who built the Biarritz.
The first building ever raised on the Flamengo waterfront — a 1925 Parisian block by Joseph Gire.
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